I really like my F70 EXR and have found that setting everything to M, the point and shoot aspects work better than I anticipated. But I also like to 'play' so that was no big deal anyway. But now my brother and his wife are 'jealous' and would like to get one. However, they are 'point and shoot' people and I'm thinking maybe the CX1 would be better for them. So what, if anything would they be giving up by going with the CX1 ?

Your brother would primarily be giving up a "big name" camera brand. As illustrated by the few posts in our Ricoh P+S folder, Ricoh is sort of a niche brand kind of camera.

The CX-1 is much more point and shoot, requiring far fewer small adjustments than you are making on your Fuji F-70EXR. It is one of the few point and shoot camera to have a LCD screen with 920,000 pixels of resolution.

The CX-1 has just 7.1X optical zoom. For some folks that is too little zoom. It has a funny and somewhat convoluted menu system, it has limited Scene Modes, slots to store two Custom Modes, an Easy Mode, a DR or Dynamic Range Mode, and a movie mode.

I am sure you can research and sort out the gamut of further technical details and what your brother might feel he is missing, as he is your brother.

I would tend to agree with your thought process. I also own and shoot a F70EXR as one of my compacts, and while it is possible to setup the camera in advance for someone less prone to "playing", really in order to get the best out of it, you have to be constantly switching parameters, which is usually just too much for those that just like to point and shoot.

that is the reason if someone wants to borrow a camera from me, i will often hand them the Panny ZR1 instead.

For someone that is just point and shoot, i don't think you will give up much by going with the CX1, it will be much easier for them to get good photographs without fiddling much.

The Ricoh would be a nice option I think. They are really well built cameras, and the CX1 offers image quality that is at or near the top of the pack. and really the 7.1x zoom covers the most useful 28-200mm focal length range that "most" people would need. it also can merge 2 photos automatically for a mini HDR.